Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pietro Psaier


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Delete. The only clear argument in wikipedia terms to emerge from this debate is that there are not sufficient third party sources to establish notability. Should they be found, then the other issues may need to be addressed.  Ty  04:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Pietro Psaier

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It's been flagged up via OTRS that this article may well be a hoax - certainly in terms of how close the relationship between Andy and Pietro was. A quick Google reveals little more than copies of the press release used as a reference, and that remains the only reference on the article since May (that discusses the close relationship; the other reference only has a fleeting mention of Pietro). I'm not convinced this is good enough sourcing, so since no sources are forthcoming, I'm nominating it for deletion. It's also worth noting that without this claimed close relationship, the artist is not likely to be notable. &mdash;Sean Whitton / 14:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions.   —Ethicoaestheticist (talk) 14:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment see this post on warholstars.org putting the case for a hoax: (it's on the front page at the moment, but could move).--Ethicoaestheticist (talk) 14:53, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete No reliable sources per nom. And the warholstars.org analysis is comprehensive and convincing.--Ethicoaestheticist (talk) 15:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. That article makes as strong a case for "hoax" as I think can be made, and without any real references here, the only recourse is to delete as it is highly probably this is in fact made up. Fascinating stuff, btw. Ford MF (talk) 15:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 *  Keep Delete without prejudice to re-creation if sources are found. This is a difficult one. I agree it's as fishy as hell (for instance, I can find no reference to the "Italian-American Institute of Art" outside Psaier bios). But I'm not happy with the argument that original research in a blog article - however convincing - over-rides reliable sources attesting to his existence The Independent and Art in London magazine). And even if it is a hoax, it's not a hoax by a Wikipedia editor but exists in the real world as a phenomenon, so should be documented. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hoaxes should be documented as hoaxes, not as fact. Ford MF (talk) 21:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ...and the warholstars account focuses on whether or not the artist was licensed to use the Factory name, and whether or not he worked for Warhol, as the gallery websites maintain. Concluding that he wasn't and didn't (which I still think is convincing), it then goes on to make the (less convincing) claim that the artist didn't exist and is the creation of an otherwise reputable auctioneer in Surrey. Evidence for the defence: one of his works is in the Wellcome Library, acquired in 2000-1 . So now we have a couple of lines in The Independent stating that he once exhibited with Warhol, and a work in a reputable library. A bit short of meeting WP:CREATIVE at the present time, but willing to change my !vote if anything else turns up.--Ethicoaestheticist (talk) 20:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per above...even best case scenario...maybe a Warhol employee, maybe not..a waiter at the Gaslight, hmmm, a somewhat obscure artist, hmmm......Modernist (talk) 16:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as hoax. Edward321 (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the Independent article - from 1997 - definitely shows that Psaier existed, and was associated with Warhol in some way. So this clearly isn't totally fictitious. DS (talk) 14:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete till something more substantial turns up about this person, who for all we know could well have just been one more of Warhol's groupies. -- Hoary (talk) 15:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would ask that everyone take a deep breath, sit back and see the warholstars article for what it really is. I am one of the people mentioned in the article - please see my post on the discussion section of Psaier in Wiki.  There will be the relevant information posted but we need the time to collate it in order to set the records straight. Jacqueline Chapman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.186.177 (talk • contribs)
 * Well, I can see I'm alone in this, but I'm not clear why people are letting a blog post of unknown credibility override a newspaper reference. That said, there really isn't enough information around to keep it. If you want the article kept (or more likely recreated), you need to provide reliable third-party published sources about him. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 20:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

KeepI am the original author of this Pietro Psaier article. I started the thread on wikipedia as I own several prints and paintings by the artist. While there maybe some debate over the link between Warhol and Psaier there is no doubt that Pietro Psaier was an artist, I bought his work from a reputable auction house in the UK and I have receipts to prove it, amongst which I have seen his work appear again and again in galleries and auction houses across London and the UK. Some of Psaier's work I've seen pays a close resemblance to that of Warhols but most I'd say is totally unique pop-art that is totally unattributed to Warhol and goes to show Psaier needs to be recognised in his own right as a pop-artist.Gooders 23:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulgoo (talk • contribs)
 * Delete. The warholstars.org posts may not be a reliable source but they are enough to raise real doubts in my mind. It's either (a) all a hoax, or more likely (b) a real but obscure artist is being hyped for commercial purposes by alleged association with Warhol and The Factory. In either case, we should be wary of letting Wikipedia be used to lend support. The external link in the article doesn't work; (see below) the Nicholson one can't be regarded as independent; the reference in the Independent is a very glancing one. This falls well short of the standard required by WP:BIO and WP:CREATIVE. If he were real and significant, he would surely have left more trace than this. The article could be re-created if sufficient references from independent reliable sources are produced. JohnCD (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - the external link in the article had been mistyped: I have corrected it so that it does now work, but it is a press release from the Nicholsons auction house, so cannot be counted as independent. JohnCD (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment I've added references to a Spainish book called 'The Factory' on Andy Warhol and Pietro Psaier. And references to recent pieces sold at auction by Christies and Bonhams including a colloborative piece by both Andy Warhol and Pietro Psaier. I hope this puts an end to these hoax myths.--Gooders 00:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulgoo (talk • contribs)

Comment It has been recommended I don't particpate unless I have "something significant to contribute." I do. I have posted new findings at http://www.warholstars.org/pietropsaier.html. Also none of the references sited by the original author prove the allegations he has made in the article. The reference to the Spanish booklet is just a catalogue listing - no text. The auction items have not been authenticated by the Andy Warhol Authentication Board and are therefore not collaborations. What is the artist's date of birth and why are there no friends or family or anyone else who knew him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 09:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment If the artist Pietro Psaier painted the work and Andy Warhol signed the work why would the Andy Warhol Authentication Board need to authenticate its a Psaier not necessary a Warhol. Second, why would Christies with their reputation sell such an expensive piece if it hadn't properly authenticated. To the other questions, what is Banksy's date of birth, friends, family? Yet he is allowed to be recognized as an artist on Wikipedia, so sorry I don't see the relevance. --Gooders 10:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Banksy is deliberately obscure about his identity as part of his schtick. No one actually could reasonably doubt the existence of Banksy.  Not so this guy here.  Ford MF (talk) 15:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment Sorry if my comment comes out in bold again. I'm new to all this. First, why on earth would Andy Warhol sign something that somebody else painted? Second, I'm a great fan of Banksy's work. But he does have people who know him. They just don't identify his real name. His dealer, Steve Lazarides who has an excellent gallery and roster of artists, knows him very well. He just won't give out his real name. If you want to start a Pisaier page that doesn't link him to Warhol then go ahead. My concern is that online sources like Wiki are being used to try to increase the value of Pasaier's alleged work by linking him to Warhol. This is not fair to the guy on the street who doesn't know a lot about Warhol's life who then buys a work thinking that it has some link to Warhol. I've not been able to access the Christies site ever since you put that link up so can't comment on that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 11:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment Ok moving forward with this Wiki, and taking the following as facts we can establish that Pietro Psaier is not a hoax and was actually a pop artist. He has sold work through all the major auction houses Sotherbys, Christies, Bonhams (I have links for all). Christies sold a collaborative screenprint in 2005 by both Pietro Psaier and Andy Warhol (link is working) where as this piece may or may not have authenticated by the Warhol board, the fact is Christies did sell it, so there must be some truth to the connection between the two artists. I am happy for the wiki to just stick to these facts and would be happy to re-write it if agreed.--Gooders 11:54, 31 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulgoo (talk • contribs)

Comment I have just read through the warholstars blog and I am not happy about claims referred to this wiki, for one it just gives one person’s unbiased viewpoint and gives no-one the opportunity to react to it and secondly because it includes the names of innocent people like myself of incrementing acts simply for contributing to a wiki?? Yes I have a background in art and design, hence why I am commenting on an Artist's wiki. Paul is a fairly common first name in the UK and I am most definitely not the other Paul mentioned, it clearly denotes from the entries to this wiki my contributions and I most definitely did not write the full biog of the artist on this wiki or any other site. And if the author of the warholstars blog is reading this if he could kindly remove the false claims and references of my name from his blog in the first instance. --Gooders 12:54, 31 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulgoo (talk • contribs)

Comment Paul, no problem. I've replaced your name with initials. But you could have just emailed me from the site. I assumed you had read the article before you made the previous comments. I've replaced your history with a revision history of the article. I'm not trying to offend anyone I just want to get to the bottom of things. I still can't access the Christies page though. The Bonhams page isn't of interest to me because it doesn't relate to Warhol. What I am objecting to is the allegation that this artist was part of Warhol's Factory and collaborated with him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 13:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment If you can access the Christie's site do a serach 'Andy Warhol Pietro Psaier' make sure you have the 'past lots' dropdown selected, two pieces should come up. Previous comments refer to whether or not the artist was licensed to use the Factory name, the Bonham's piece refers to a 'signed & stamped' label 'Factory Additions New York', further proof in my mind that the artist was involved with the Factory. Thanks for removing my name from your blog. --Gooders 14:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)--
 * Christie's? It troubles me that basically every reference to this guy seems to be from people trying to sell his work.  Ford MF (talk) 15:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment Gooders - Thanks. But can't access Christies now. Must be busy. Regarding Bonhams, possibly someone signed his name to an already existing print or it was an unauthorized copy. Factory Additions was set up to do Warhol prints. They didn't do prints by anyone else. As I mentioned before the Authentication Board didn't authenticate it. I wonder who is behind all this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 15:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Update - a four-page update has been posted on the warholstars site here. JohnCD (talk) 18:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment I don't think the warholstars blog should be referred to as it doesn't cite any facts and is mainly made up of the author's guess work. I think its really important to start to organise this wiki with actual facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.115.188.2 (talk) 09:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There are very few actual facts about in this case. What we have is on the lines of "a piece claimed to be by Psaier was sold by Christies on such a date" or "someone told the Independent reporter that Psaier was an associate of Warhol and included his electric chair in a 1970s joint exhibition". I think what we find in the warholstars blog, e.g. "Matt Wrbican, the chief archivist of the Warhol museum, made the following statement...  'As custodian of Warhol's archives, I can state unequivocally that I have never seen any reference to (Pietro Psaier) in them. It's my belief that his alleged friendship/collaboration is a complete sham and hoax' " is at least as much a fact. One needs to keep asking the historian's questions about any "fact": Who said it? and How did he know? JohnCD (talk) 10:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment If you go to the ABOUT section of warholstars.org you will see the list of publications in which it has been cited as a source. It is not a blog site. If you go to the SOURCES section you will see my own sources. Everything on the site is referenced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 10:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment Here is what Kenneth Goldsmith said about warholstars.org in the book "I'll Be Your MIrror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews" (NY:Caroll & Graf Publ. 2004): "Although I've never met him, I must acknowledge Gary Comenas, creator of warholstars.org, a site I visited daily during my research. Gary's site could be the very best resource on Andy Warhol there is - either in print or on the Web." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 10:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Update I need to clarify "Factory Additions" in regard to the Bonham piece cited as a reference. The source of information is "Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonne 1962-1987 (Edition Schellmann in assn. with Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc and The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Inc., rev. ed. 1997). Factory Additions was a company that was established by Andy Warhol in 1966 in order to produce prints. (p. 21) It produced prints from 1966 - 1974. (p. 278) Therefore, any works by any other artist using the label "Factory Additions" had nothing to do with Warhol after 1974. Any certificates bearing the words "Factory Additions" dated after 1974 had nothing to do with Warhol's company Factory Additions. The Bonhams piece is dated 1982.

Also, previously it was alleged that Psaier had something to do with Warhol's printer Rupert Jasen Smith. Until 1974, Warhol worked with commercial printers such as Aetna Silkscreen Products, Inc. and Salvatore Silkscreen Co. Inc. (p. 278) Alexander Heinrici was Warhol's primary printer from 1974 to 1976. (p. 278) In 1977 Rupert Jasen Smith became Warhol's printer until Warhol's death in 1987. (p. 278) Therefore, Smith had nothing to do with Warhol's Factory Additions and nothing to do with the 1960s Factory output. UpThere (talk) 14:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question - what is the earliest-dated reference to Psaier that anyone can find? With the single exception of the 1997 reference in the Independent, everything cited, and anything I can find, seems to be 2005 or later. JohnCD (talk) 16:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment Another auction reference!! but 1994 on Christies website Bob Dylan Print --Gooders 17:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulgoo (talk • contribs)

Comment The auctioneers press release previously used as a reference has already been discounted because the auctioneer was selling his art and had a vested interest. The same is true of any auctioneer selling his work. I have never read a biography of anyone which used an auction site as a reference to prove the existence of that person. There has never been a mention of Psaier in any reputable art journal such as Art Review, Art Forum, Art News or the Art Newspaper. He has never been mentioned in any art histories or biographies. I suspect that the reason a few people are trying so hard to get him into Wikipedia is because they own something by him and want it to increase in value. A so-called Psaier would be worth a lot more if there was a Warhol link. It has been shown that there isn't. Wikipedia is about knowledge and should not be used for financial gain. 77.103.8.29 (talk) 18:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment Well suprisingly I disagree auction houses like Christies and Sotherbys have very strict criteria and employ the very best art specialists in the business, making mistakes with Warhols is not an option. I personally love Psaier's work for what it is, great pop-art which is why should Psaier should be listed on Wikipedia, regardless of the Warhol link. --Gooders 22:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulgoo (talk • contribs)

Comment: I would add once more that the information needed to clarify everything will be forthcoming. In the meantime I would ask that people refer back to the original warholstars article in which the author slandered and maligned those he mentioned in the article with no evidence at that point in time. He even went on to state that Psaier never existed. He has also used Wiki as a platform to hype his own product, his website, the same as he is accusing others of doing. To slander and malign people on a public platform - both on his own website and Wiki -  without having gathered evidence at that point to back up those accusations is giving this author the attention and publicity he so obviously craves.

Conspiracy theories are a part of modern history unfortunately and we now have auctioneers, galleries, the general public, state departments, newspapers et al involved in yet another one according to the author ....

Is wiki doing anything about its site being used as a public platform to publicise warholstars? He constantly places his sites name in his posts. This is no different to what he has accused the owners and sellers of Psaier's works of doing in order to increase the value of the Psaier works they own. As the original complainant to Wiki accusing people of being involved in a hoax and inaccuracies, Wiki had advised him not to take part in this discussion unless he had a significant contributions to make. The history of his posts indicate the contrary, they are not all of a significant contribution. The links between Wiki and his site are also evidence of this.

In answer to the question: What is the earliest dated reference? The evidence we have of Psaiers artworks goes back as far as the 1950's.

I will not make any further comment regarding this matter until such time as we have a completed package.

I am only making this statement now at a sense of outrage that wiki has been used as a platform for slander. This is a very serious matter and I would hope that those in control of Wiki would be able to do something to prevent this ever happening again in the future to anyone else. Jacqueline Chapman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.186.177 (talk) 23:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment' Chapman above has a vested interest in this. I have mentioned her in my article at http://www.warholstars.org/pietropsaier.html. She has slandered me at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pietro_Psaier. Last night someone using a false name from a hotmail address emailed me with some 'documents' relating to a Studio Psaier. They don't prove the existence of Psaier. They are clearance forms for works of art. I have never said that works of art bearing this person's name do not exist. There are works of art out there signed 'Psaier." But anyone could be producing them and signing them. Whoever is doing it could still be alive. As I have mentioned above Factory Additions stopped trading after 1974. There is no record of an address or history for anything called 'Studio Psaier.' The forms were done in order to release the works of art for travel, etc... In regard to the dating of the works, we do not know if the dating is true. Anyone can attribute a date to a work. A true date can only be established through modern dating analysis (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_forgery). These works have never been through that process. For all we know, this hoax could be similar to the "Nat Tate" hoax where David Bowie created an artist and fooled the art world. "Nat Tate" never existed and I strongly doubt that someone named Pietro Psaier did. Let's stick to the facts here and not throw insults back and forth. As I mentioned in my article, the producer of the the film that Chapman is working on has already admitted to me by email that my points are valid. Gary Comenas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.8.29 (talk) 03:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.